Using secret evidence and an assumption of guilt to detain non-citizens indefinitely under threat of deportation, security certificate legislation inflicts high consequences on detainees with extremely low standards of justice, members of the Coalition Justice for Adil Charkaoui said at a Refugee Research Project event Wednesday.

Throughout the talk, Montreal French teacher and PhD student Adil Charkaoui detailed his decade-long struggle with the federal government over broad allegations of posing a threat to “national security,” or fitting the profile of a “sleeper agent” – terms that remain undefined in his case.

Last month, however, the judge hearing his public trial removed many of the strict conditions imposed upon him after his release from prison in 2005, stating that no evidence before her suggested Charkaoui was or might be dangerous.

Charkaoui – who does not have access to the supposed evidence in his file, and who has never been charged with a crime – said now is a critical point in his ongoing fight to clear his name.

For a full recording of the talk, see the Daily/CKUT audio blog at mcgilldaily.com.

– Max Halparin

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